A COMMUNITY campaigner has described as "useless" the current options available for drug rehabilitation.

Carol Connell told a meeting of the Blackley Liberal Democrats that it was no use giving drug users a short six-week course of treatment and then shoving them back in the community.

"There is an enormous drug problem in North Manchester and we are just not addressing it properly," she said. "When it comes to heroin it has reached almost epidemic proportions. Six weeks is not long enough to treat them, it should be six months and there should be on-going support away from their original environment.

"It is necessary to take them away from their environment to assist them to avoid the temptation of being enticed back to their original situation."

Opening the meeting, which was to raise funds for the local Party, the chairman Rod Isherwood noted that Labour had been in power for 30 years and this was not good for democracy. But the Liberal Democrat opposition was becoming stronger and before long it was hoped that they would become the majority party in council.

The well attended meeting was addressed by Lib-Dem peer Lord Ronnie Fearn who recalled that he submitted a question at parliamentary question time to, then, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and asked her to smile when giving her answer. Because of this he became known as the MP who asked "Maggie to smile".